Tetra Pak recycling: what the industry does not tell you

Every week, millions of people throw a used carton into the recycling bin, convinced it will become another package. For years we have been taught this small ritual is part of the solution. Partly, it is. But a key question rarely appears in advertising: what really happens when that Tetra Pak reaches the sorting plant?

The six-layer problem

Although perceived as "cardboard", a Tetra Pak is actually a multi-material package made of six microscopic layers: 75% cardboard, 20% polyethylene, 5% aluminium. These layers are thermally fused and cannot be easily separated.

The cardboard fraction can be recovered in water baths. The remaining mixture of plastic and aluminium — known as PolyAl — requires industrial pyrolysis at 500°C. Spain once had the world's only large-scale plant capable of doing this (Stora Enso, Barcelona), but it closed because it was not economically viable. Today, no plant in Spain can fully recycle PolyAl.

The real numbers

Industry figures from ACE and Ecoembes suggest recycling rates near 78.8% in Spain. But independent consultant Eunomia Research & Consulting (commissioned by Zero Waste Europe, 2020) measured how much material actually returns to the productive cycle: 21.4%, dropping to 17.3% after processing losses.

Even Tetra Pak's own 2024 Sustainability Report acknowledges a global recycling rate of just 28%.

Our choice

Our PET packaging uses a single material (♻1 PETE) that any sorting plant in Spain or Europe can process. No aluminium laminate. No complex delamination. The BiB 5L format separates cleanly: cardboard box in the blue bin, flexible bag in the yellow bin.

No packaging is perfect. But some materials have far better chances of truly completing the recycling cycle.